Since it’s been introduced, linesman have been told to let play continue unless it’s an obvious offside decision, then if a goal is scored with a player slightly offside VAR would overrule it. This sounds like a suitable system, however it causes way too much confusion as the margin between it being a clear offside and it being slightly offside is causing officials to do nothing when they probably would usually flag. Then for example, if a team was to get a corner from a player who was offside taking a shot, but the linesman doesn’t flag it as he has been told not to. If that team then goes onto score from the corner what happens then? They would have gained an unfair advantage because officials have been told to not do their jobs. This is one of the reasons why the VAR system needs to be tweaked as the referee’s and linesman’s should be briefed more clearly on what actions they take in a situation like this.

For all the negative parts to VAR there are some positives as it is technically getting tight offside decisions right even if it is by 0.1mm. There has been a lot of debate about whether it’s going too far into offside decisions, however I see it very clearly that when your offside no matter by the margin then it’s an encroachment. Of course football is about scoring goals, but these need to be scored fairly otherwise it takes the credibility away from the game. I believe that some fans didn’t actually fully think about what introducing VAR into the league would mean, the whole system is designed to help referees and guide them to the correct decision and these tight offside calls fall perfectly into this category. I know that the delays are ridiculous, but this is what it was brought into do, making every game as fair as possible to both teams. In the future, with a few changes, VAR will be one of the best parts of the game as eventually we will find a solution to the faults and become more efficient with it.

Overall, there are many more negatives to the system than positives at the moment, however I feel it does have the potential to be very effective. Changes need to be made to improve how long it takes, who should view the incident, how many reviews you should get etc as this will give it a level of consistency between both teams, then fans will not be able to claim it’s biased. This will take time, prepare yourselves for the next couple of seasons it being inconsistent, but eventually it will reach a level where everyone is happy with it. To take football to the next level and to not be left behind, evolution is necessary and this is an excellent way to do this providing it has an adequate system in place, which it still has work to do in this regard. The FA needs to hold regular review meetings of how well the system is working and tweak it accordingly to make it the best it can be, if this is to happen I see no reason why it wouldn’t be hugely successful in the years to come.